Supporting the inception stage of building projects with real-time value versus cost evaluations

Abstract: "The paper discusses early results of an inception support modeller that uses state of the art Product Data Technology (PDT) and Knowledge Technology (KT). The modeller under development provides Facility owners with the opportunity to create and evaluate a number of alternative solutions for their accomodation by stating their requirements like i.e. functional requirements and resources like i.e. available money and location. By applying knowledge rules, case rules and default values information gaps will be closed in order to generate more detailed alternatives. This process assures the availability of just enough product information to perform an evaluation of the performance and the cost, and gives the Facility owner a better view on a realistic solution of his requirements. Using a 3D frontend in combination with a requirements language which is easy to comprehend the client can input his requirements on different aspects of the project like project related aspects (cash flow, type of contract), building environment related aspects (availabity of public transport or green), functional related aspects and components related aspects. Feedback wil be given like cost evaluations, construction time and performance values like energy usage, exspected lifetime, running cost, and maintenance cost.
The working of the tool will be illustrated by a case, a Hospital Inception Modeller."